


Genius in a Bottle

by Neverever



Series: Cap-IM Tiny Reverse Bang ficlets [13]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Genie/Djinn, Djinni & Genies, Fairy Tale Curses, M/M, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-26
Updated: 2015-09-26
Packaged: 2018-04-23 11:52:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4875820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neverever/pseuds/Neverever
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Genie Tony has not met anyone like Merchant Steve before. He might be a little in love. But he still has a job to do – to convince Steve to use his three wishes. Steve isn’t getting the hint.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Genius in a Bottle

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Гений в бутылке](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9981377) by [faikit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/faikit/pseuds/faikit), [WTF_Avengers_2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WTF_Avengers_2017/pseuds/WTF_Avengers_2017)



> Written for the thirteenth and final round of the Cap/Iron Man Tiny Reverse Big Bang.
> 
> Art, titled “A Friend Like Me” is by [Inoshi](http://angelinoshi.tumblr.com) and is [here](http://41.media.tumblr.com/751f826b4f23947bb43cf7b16acc9a75/tumblr_nqpsjfLwxj1uqoi07o1_500.jpg) and [here.](http://angelinoshi.tumblr.com/post/129410477783/my-entry-for-the-tiny-reverse-bang-o-round) Check it out!
> 
> Thanks to my beta for all the help and the very fast turn around.

The alarm rang loud and annoying, interrupting Tony hard at work in his workshop. He groaned. That alarm signaled that a new person had found his lamp. He was covered in grease and wearing his sturdy workshop tunic and trousers, and people these days expected their genies to arrive with style and panache.

Well, Mr. New Guy wasn’t getting that. He was getting the genuine article, a genius genie, and there was no cause to complain about a few oil stains and grease splashes.

Tony took pride in his work and regularly won high praise from his demon boss. He was quick at discerning what a client wanted, getting the client to cough up three wishes, and turning in yet another gullible human to his boss, Obadiah, for a bounty.

Then Tony was free to do what he wanted, which was tinkering around his workshop building complex clockwork toys. He tried not to think about his genie work too much.

Another day, another three wishes. He wondered what this human wanted. He hoped there would be some challenge in it for him this time.

Tony emerged from the lamp with the traditional smoke reveal and bowed to his client. He preferred to call them clients, as he hated the word master. He understood the appeal of calling the client ‘Master,’ though, because it was all part of the game. Still grated.

“Hello, Master,” Tony said.

The human immediately dropped the lamp. Statistically, clients dropped the lamp in 79.5% of first meetings. Tony had once run the data during a deathly dull dry spell.

“Um, hello,” the human said.

“I am Tony, Genie of the Lamp,” Tony started. He recited the usual speech about the three wishes in the usual complicated genie legalese. Meanwhile he sized up his latest client.

The client was a very attractive, tall man with blond hair and bright blue eyes. While Tony totally appreciated the view, he also noted the man was nicely dressed, in clothes appropriate for a merchant, and looked decently fed and not particularly desperate.

Tony pondered what the hook would be -- wealth was usually the first wish, health and beauty next. He couldn’t quite tell what this guy might wish for. Tony might have gotten the challenge he longed for.

“I’m Steve,” said the tall blond. He held out his hand to shake Tony’s, which was odd. It had only happened .001% of the time before. By now, roughly 59% of his clients were already on their first wish. Well, Steve seemed to be the polite sort. Tony liked that.

“So, how about that first wish?” Tony asked.

“I’m not sure. I can’t think of anything,” Steve replied. “I was polishing the lamp before I opened my stall.” He held up Tony’s beautiful gold and red lamp with the glowing glass.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Tony said, looking fondly at his lamp.

“Yes, it is a beautiful lamp,” Steve agreed. “If you’ll excuse me, I have to work now.”

“Don’t mind me, I’ll sit over here.” Tony perched on a stool in the back of the small stall.

After the first hour, Tony got the sense that Steve was a decent man who genuinely liked people. The stall was filled with Steve’s goods, a careful selection of secondhand household items. Steve had excellent taste in what he stocked, and he did a brisk business, giving fair prices and deals to his customers. He never cheated a customer once, and was cheerful the whole morning.

It wasn’t going to be easy to seduce Steve into stating his three wishes. But Tony did enjoy talking with Steve in between customers. He was turning out to be an interesting person.

“Would you like lunch?” Steve asked after waiting on five customers.

Startled, Tony shook his head free of his plans for his next clockwork creation. “Lunch?”

“Yes, I usually buy lunch from my friend Sam, who runs a falafel stall. I didn’t know if you were hungry.”

“Sure, whatever you’re having would be fine.” No client had ever offered him lunch before. (Maybe they thought genies didn’t need to eat, scoffed Tony.)

Steve bought him lunch and said that as soon he sold the last of his baskets, they could go home.

“You could wish --?” Tony suggested. He had a few clients who managed to put off making that final wish for a few days. He had never run into anyone who didn’t make the first wish within five hours of meeting Tony.

“No, I think I can sell them.”

The afternoon dragged as Steve sold his baskets one by one. “Do -- do you have some place to go? Because you could come home with me if you need a place to stay,” he offered Tony.

“I live in the lamp, Steve. I’d also like to point out that you still have three wishes and you have haven’t used a single one.”

“I don’t need anything.”

“Right. Humans always want something or other. Wishing makes it easier. Which I can help with. Just sayin’.”

Shuttering his stall and tucking Tony’s lamp beneath his arm, Steve started home, and bought bread and figs from another merchant on the way. Tony tagged along behind as they wound their way through the brilliant white-walled city and crowds of people and animals to Steve’s tiny rooms on the third floor of an apartment building.

As Steve made them dinner, Tony pointed out. “You could wish for a mansion. It’d be bigger than this place. Where do you expect me to sleep?” Or work. Sometimes it was nice to not have to work in the confining lamp.

“I thought you lived in the lamp.” Steve had carefully placed it in a corner so that it wouldn’t get damaged.

“Yes, but you don’t. How does someone as large as you manage to live in this small an apartment?”

“It’s always been the right size for me,” Steve replied. “And I have all the room I need on the roof.”

Steve showed Tony the large rooftop of his building where he had put a worn carpet and a pile of threadbare pillows under a canopy. He had a breathtaking view of the city. Tony could see the twinkling lights in the darkening dusk and a glimmer of the desert sands beyond the walls of the city. Lounging against the pillows and sipping another cup of water sweetened with citrus, Tony conceded that maybe Steve had a point in not wishing for a mansion.

Tony spent the next several weeks with Steve in the same fashion. Each morning Steve headed off to his market stall, leaving Tony to sleep in late in his lamp. Tony joined him for lunch and covered the stall while Steve hunted up more merchandise to sell. They bantered while Steve sketched. Tony stole the drawings to tack them around his workshop in the lamp until he could no longer see the walls. He missed Steve when Steve took short trips to buy new goods. Almost every night they would buy food for dinner as they walked home and spend the evening talking on Steve’s rooftop.

It was another beautiful night and Tony was trying hard to not be distracted by Steve’s lovely biceps. He’d gotten a nasty lamp-message from Obie to conclude business with Steve. But Steve was a hard nut to crack. Steve was happy with his job, his large circle of friends, and his home. He wasn’t going to wish for a better position, more friends, or a larger place to live. He had already rejected wishes for money, or revenge, or power, or any of the other standard requests.

Tonight, though, Tony had no fight in him. He lounged against the pillows while Steve sketched him. Looking up at the gorgeous Steve, who was a good and kind man, he blurted out, “Why aren’t you taken already?”

“Huh?” Steve said, not taking his eyes away from the sketchbook.

“You could wish for a wife or a husband. How about Natasha, across the way?”

“Natasha? No. We’re great friends and she is working hard as a dancer -- a husband would get in the way even if she was interested.”

“Sam?”

“Great friend.”

Tony rattled off the entire list of people he thought Steve knew. Steve’s lips curved into a smile as he said no to each person for one reason or another.

“Well, since none of those are the right person for you, you could always wish for the right person,” Tony said. “You still have three wishes, I have to remind you.”

“Tony, I’ll meet the right person in the right time..”

Tony grumbled and shifted on the pillows. Secretly, he might have been pleased that Steve wasn’t sold on anybody. He was getting absurdly too fond of Steve and felt that no one was good enough for the man.

Steve put down the sketch paper. “Could you show me your clockwork toys? You talk about them all day, but I’ve never seen them.”

“Really? You’d like to see them?” No one else had ever been interested.

Steve nodded. “Yes, I would.”

Tony conjured up his little creations and Steve’s smile grew wider and more beautiful as Tony showed him how the toys worked.

“You’re brilliant, Tony,” he said as a wooden frog hopped around the carpet.

One late, lazy afternoon a few months after Steve first polished the lamp, Tony was teasing Steve about taking him out to dinner at that place with the delicious tea and the date pastries. Steve laughed at him. “You like that place because the owner flirts with you.”

“I’m fine with the flirting if I get that hot and crusty bread that they make.”

“Alright, I grant you -- that’s great bread.” Steve moved some pots around. “Thinking about that bread, I wish that --”

They both froze in place. Tony’s heart beat fast, now worried that Steve would use his wishes and Tony wouldn’t get to see him any more. And Steve’s soul would end up in Obie’s clutches.

Steve took a deep breath. “Never mind,” he said. But the spell of the afternoon had been broken, and Tony watched, fretfully, while a quiet and withdrawn Steve worked around the stall.

It got worse. Obie complained bitterly and sarcastically that he was taking too long to get Steve to make his wishes and threatened to punish Tony, hinting at the terrible things he would do to Tony if he failed to deliver Steve.

After dinner that night, Tony suggested that Steve go up to the rooftop while he cleaned up. “I was wondering when you would come up,” Steve said when he heard Tony climb the stairs to the roof. “Oh,” Steve whispered as Tony stepped onto the roof. He stood, staring at Tony like he had never ever seen him before.

Tony had taken the time to comb and style his hair, trim his beard, put on his best jewelry and slip into a pair of embroidered red trousers and a gold-trimmed vest. It was worth the effort to render Steve speechless and wide-eyed. “Come on, get on the carpet.”

“Tony?” asked Steve, stepping back onto his carpet. “What’s going on?”

“We’re going on a date.” Tony didn’t like using magic outside the whole wish-granting scheme. But he could do this for tonight. He muttered an incantation to turn the carpet into a flying carpet. The carpet rose a few inches and Steve tumbled on his ass.

Laughing, Tony sat down beside him. “Let me take you for a ride.”

Steve made some sort of strangled sound in his throat as Tony tapped the rug to take off.

“Wow. I didn’t know anyone could blush that far down,” Tony observed.

Recovering, Steve asked, “What’s next?”

“A trip around the world.”

Tony would have given everything he owned to keep this moment forever, simply for the wonder in Steve’s beautiful eyes. Steve reached out to hold Tony’s hand as they rose into the sky. He was awestruck as they flew over the great cities of the world, watched fireworks, glided over a river coated with glowing lanterns, and passed through flocks of birds and clouds.

When the carpet finally landed back on Steve’s rooftop, Steve said breathlessly, “Thank you.”

They sat on the carpet, unready and unwilling to move. Tony drank it all in, knowing these were his last few minutes with Steve, and that he had to figure out how to warn him. All of this would be so much easier if Steve had an actual selfish bone in his body, and put himself ahead of other people for once.

“So, Steve,” Tony started.

“I can’t believe we did that! You’re amazing -- you can make a carpet fly and we saw the world. And it was because of you!” Steve went on and on. Tony, who never blushed, felt his cheeks redden from Steve’s praise.

“Um, thanks, Steve. But --”

Steve reached out and cupped Tony’s chin in both his hands. “I’ve been so happy since you showed up in my stall. Thank you. For everything. For every day.” He pressed his lips to Tony’s. And sat back on his heels with a dopey smile on his face.

Tony sat there, stunned. He had no idea what to do or say. “Steve --”

“I haven’t made any wishes because I know what happens when you use up your wishes. But if you want to, I could make a wish that you are free? I want you to be happy, Tony, would that make you happy?”

Ugh, Steve was making it worse. Tony knew that Steve was one of _those_ , the people you hear about that use a wish to set their genie free. But Tony, hardened as he was about the reality of what happens when humans make even the good and noble wishes, knew it didn’t work that way. His real master was Obie, who had a hold on Tony until the end of time. Because if all it took was a wish to be free, he would have figured out how to get a human to do that a long time ago.

“Steve -- Steve.” His heart was breaking as he put his hand on Steve’s broad shoulder. “It doesn’t work that way, darling. The whole wish thing -- it’s a scam put out there by demons to steal human souls. I’ve done terrible things because of the wish curse, and I regret everything and want to do better. To live a better life. But even if you used your wish to free me, I’d still be bound to wait around for you to make two more wishes, however small and meaningless. And when you used your last wish, you’d lose.”

Tony staggered to his feet. “Steve, if you want me to be happy, if you care about me, take my lamp somewhere far away from here and leave it. You’ll be free of the curse.”

“But then I wouldn’t have you.”

“That’s not important. You’re-- you’re much more important that I’ll ever be.” Tony vanished so he could escape the crushing disappointment on Steve’s face.

Tony waited for three days in his lamp, giving Steve ample time to move it. On the fourth day, Tony woke up ready to face Obie. Assuming that by now he was in Obie’s office, he popped out of the lamp, only to find that he was still in Steve’s tiny apartment and that Steve was waiting for him.

With red-rimmed eyes and ripped, dusty clothes, Steve looked Tony right in the eye and asked, “Do you trust me, Tony?”

“Yes.” Tony couldn’t get his head around the fact that Steve waited for him.

“How long do we have to wait for Obie to show up?”

“Um, any minute now. Wait -- what do you know about Obie?”

“I took a crash course in genies,” Steve explained. “Trust me, okay?”

Thunder and lightning announced Obie’s arrival in a towering cloud of smoke. If Tony hadn’t been scared for Steve, he would have rolled his eyes at Obie.

“It’s time, Tony -- do you have my prize?” he roared. Tony readied himself for a fight.

“Tony -- I wish that Obie was a frog,” Steve stated.

“Um, sure. Whatever. You got it, Master.” Wish magic was more powerful than Obie, and before he could escape, Tony waved his hands. And then Obie was a frog hopping around the floor. Steve shooed him out the door and down the stairs into the bustling street.

“Well. That’s not quite what I expected,” Tony said, stroking his chin. “You know, it’s going to take him a good while to get out of that spell. It only buys us some time -- you’re still caught in the wish curse.”

“I have two more wishes, right?” Steve took Tony’s hand. “Tony, there’s a way to set us both free, but it would mean you wouldn’t be a genie anymore. And I can’t do that without you agreeing to it.”

“Oh.” Tony ran his hand through his hair. “Let me get something out of my lamp before I decide, okay?”

“Take your time, Tony.”

Tony popped back into his lamp to gather up all his tools and Steve’s drawings. His mind raced at the idea -- he suspected what Steve was going to do -- but if it freed him from his terrible life as a genie where he preyed on humans, he was willing to do whatever it took. Three days of waiting had given him a long time to think about changing his life if he escaped from Obie.

He apparated out of the lamp back into Steve’s apartment. Steve looked quizzically at the piles of tools and rolled paper at Tony’s feet. “I’m ready, Steve. Do your worse.”

“Tony, I wish that you are a human.”

“Not a genie? Gotcha.” Tony felt a wave of powerful magic wash over him. Something was profoundly different, and he couldn’t feel the tug of Steve’s unspoken third wish anymore. He couldn’t do the wish magic even if Steve made that third wish.

The curse was broken.

“Are you okay, Tony?” Steve asked.

“I’m great!” He rushed over and grabbed Steve. “I can’t ever grant you the third wish now, so the wish curse can’t happen.” He kissed Steve on the lips with a loud, enthusiastic smack. “How did you know?”

Steve replied, “I found wise people who told me what to do. But the cost was making you human.”

Tony wondered if wiggling his toes really felt different now that he was human. It did a little, but he might be projecting. He smiled and hugged Steve tightly. “I was bad at the genie game -- I’m a man of science and I hate magic. This is so much better.”

“What about all these tools?” Steve asked.

“Oh, we’ll make room for my workbench. So I can build my toys. Which I expect you to sell in the market. I have ideas. And plans.” Tony kissed Steve again. “Lots of ideas and plans.”

 

 

Badge art by Imaginaryelle


End file.
